sharethelex

Why you shouldn’t care about average days on market

by John Rice

I met with a cool family a few weeks ago. They were going to interview a handful of realtors. I’m always a little freaked out at listing presentations. See, there are agents that come with power point presentations full of market wide data available to every realtor in town, and then blurt out something like “After looking at the statistics for this neighborhood, your house will sell at 5:46 P.M. next Tuesday.” That impresses some people I guess. I’m not one of those that throws out a bunch of statistics. I kind of like to look at the house, assess the positives and negatives that I think buyers will see, then do a market analysis to find what I think the house is worth. I usually do all this wearing a pair of shorts and sandals, often forgetting to give the people my business card. I ordered 5000 back in 2016 and still have about 4983.

Why don’t I worry much about DOM and other statistics? It is because I am only dealing with one house. Yep. That’s right. The only numbers I care about are the ones for your house. We never really know when your Buyer will arrive. All we can do is price it realistically, make it look as great as possible, and present it well online.  When I get such a seller, their house usually sells quickly.

So, back to the listing appointment. I’m on the tour of the house and the husband asked me the average DOM question. I told him that I didn’t even look at that because I don’t care how long it took other houses to sell in the recent past, I only care about how long it is going to take his house to sell right now. As soon as I said that, I knew I either had this listing or I had just totally blown it.

Fortunately this cool couple saw my point and went with me.

Is your yard fenced?

by John Rice

If your yard is fenced, do you know who owns it? Like 100% sure? If you are like most people with a fenced in yard, there was fencing on 3 side when you bought your house. Maybe you were told from the previous owner that all or part of it was your’s. But is it?

As a realtor, I advise my sellers NOT to make claim to a fence unless they are the ones who installed it or have some sort of documentation that they own it. I do not claim the fence as part of the property that conveys when listing a home. I simply state in the marketing remarks whether it is fenced or not. Absolutely zero claim of ownership, just that fencing exists.

WHY?

I bought my first house directly from a seller long before I became The LEXpert. I was a 20 something first time buyer who knew nothing. I was told by the seller, Will was his name, that the fencing belonged to him and would be mine with the sale of the home. I never thought about that statement from him again until I came home one day to find not only my dog missing but a large section of white picket fencing gone between my yard and the neighbor on the right. The owner of the home next door was a sweet little old lady who had lived there for 50+ years. When I asked why she removed my fence, she nicely told me that her deceased husband had put that fence up many years ago and she didn’t want it any more. (BTW, we soon found our little mutt named Edwina……which is not used anywhere as a password so no need for hackers to harvest this info.)

If I had any type of documentation that Will had told me the fencing was mine, I could have taken him to court to fill in the fencing void left when the rightful owner removed the fencing.

While I have never again had a similar issue in my 20 year career, I do not want my sellers to possibly be on the hook for buying the next owner a fence. Often being a good realtor is as much about what you prevent from happening as it is about what you make happen.

What to look for in your next Realtor

by John Rice

I had a friend contact me on Facebook about the possibility of finding a new agent to sell their house that is outside of my market. They were not asking me about listing it for them, just advice on what to do. Seems they have had a lot of showings, and obviously no offers yet. I though this would make a good blog post.  

“Sorry to take so long to get back to you. This isn’t an easy one to answer so I wanted to have time to give a thorough response.

I’ve got a few questions.

Question 1: Is your current agent presenting it well online? Go online and take a look at the listing. If the pictures and marketing remarks wouldn’t make you want to see it, odds are everybody else feels the same way. While you are there, double check that everything is accurate.

Question 2: Is it priced realistically? If you have had that many showings, it may be priced high. I don’t know the market where you live, but to have that many buyers look and not make an offer could mean that the price is too high or………Question #3!

Question 3: Is the feedback you are getting from showings that there is some fatal negative that buyers just can’t look past? If you keep hearing the same thing over and over again, you might have a big negative. Most big negatives can only be conquered with a price reduction.

So, if you do part ways with this agent, here is what I would look for next. Ideally, an agent that works with at least as many buyers as they do sellers. Most agents prefer to list. Agents that mostly only list houses don’t see as many houses. An agent that works with a lot of buyers has probably been in a lot of the houses that you will be competing against. That agent will be better able to tell you what your house offers to buyers that are out there right now! I’d also look for somebody that deals mostly in your price range. It always kills me when I see an affordable house listed by agents that deal almost exclusively in high end houses. What does an agent really know about a $250k house and $250k buyers when 98% of their work is over a million?

I’d also look for somebody that has a plan. Don’t go for the agent that spits out their average days on market unless they can specifically tell you what they did to acheive it. You want somebody that will do a market analysis and will show you how they came up with what they think your house is worth, even if you don’t like the number. Some agents will list a house for whatever price it takes to get the listing. Then they start hitting you up for price reductions. I kind of think it is better to deal with reality now, since you’ll have to at some point down the road.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions…..I may turn this into a blog post. (No names of people, places, things though.)”

100% fool proof way to time the market

by John Rice

“Is now a good time to buy or sell, or should I wait?”

I get asked this a lot.

My reply is that while there might be times that are statistically slightly better or worse to buy or sell, the timing has more to do with you than the market. I secretly think it is us Realtors who came up with the whole timing the market thing. Ever notice we always have a good reason for right this minute being your best time to buy or sell? Prices could go up, buy now! Rates could go up, buy now! Rates dropped an eighth of a point, buy now! There will be fewer houses on the market in winter to compete with, sell now! More buyers are out in the spring and summer, sell now!

Is there something in your life making it a good time for you to buy or sell? Maybe you are getting married, got a job in a new town, getting divorced, having a child or any personal reason for a move? Then the time for you is now.

Another reason is when the perfect house hits the market.

No two houses are totally identical. Sure, some new ones can be extremely similar, buy even they are not 100% the same. I recently had a friend and his wife find a house for sale on a street they have always dreamed about. We viewed the house. They fell in love. An offer was made and accepted. The time was right because they wanted it and it was suddenly available. Who knows when the next one on that street, which only has 30 homes, would be available?

Sometimes you have no control over the timing.

I recently had a similar experience but with car buying. I am really into older BMWs. A friend of mine had a 1987 BMW 535i that had been in his family since new. It was bought locally and has been in Lexington ever since. It has been maintained by a shop owned by a friend. A family friend was the sales manager at the dealership and I have a document signed in 1987 by him in the glovebox. I had always drooled over this car since it was in really good cosmetic condition. There are few left that are as nice as this one.

My friend called me up one day out of the blue saying it was time to sell it. He asked if I was in the market. I told him I was not actively looking, but I was in the market NOW since the right car presented itself to me. He knew the time was right for him. I knew the time was right for me. He did not wonder if he could have gotten more by waiting. I did not entertain the thought of waiting for the next one.

You are in the center of your real estate decisions. Do what is best for your needs and don’t worry about it…..and according to us Realtors, now is always a good time, LOL!

Where are the entry level brand new affordable homes?

by John Rice

When the ink on my real estate license was still drying, Lexington was already getting pretty expensive for first time buyers. Yes, I know $150k for a brand new home in Masterson sounds absurdly cheap right now, but there was a time when that was just beyond the reach of your then millennial first time buyer. Back then, your choice for entry level new construction money was a 2 bedroom/1.5 bath townhouse in Lexington or a 3 bedroom/2 bath ranch in Nicholasville.

Nicholasville was close to Lexington. Even closer now. It was just another 20 minutes of driving to get a better house. That was enough for all those My Space loving kids to pull the trigger. You got your own yard, a two car garage and didn’t have to share a wall with anybody.

Where is that happening today? Richmond. A quick search for brand new 3 bedroom/2 bath ranch homes under $300k shows that. Yeah, there are a few in Georgetown but not many. Forget about it in Lexington. Nicholasville? Nope. Nicholasville has become a legit suburb of Lexington. The market there is now more mid and upper level homes for new construction.